It has emerged recently that in Galveston, Texas, a terrible assault was perpetrated by police officers a couple years ago.
Apparently four officers got a call about some white prostitutes in an area. So they go to investigate. Some distance from the actual site of the complaint, a breaker goes out in a house and the mother sends her twelve year old daughter out to flip a switch to restore power. The cops are outside and see the girl, who is black.
The cops get out of their vehicle and advance towards the girl, one calling her a prostitute and saying she's going with them. They grab the girl and she starts screaming and resisting and calling for her father.
Did I mention what the cops were wearing yet? Oh, I didn't?
All officers were wearing plainclothes - civilian clothes with no uniform or insignia to identify themselves. They did not show their badges or otherwise identify themselves as police as they attacked the girl. And their vehicle? An unmarked blue van.
So we have a group of men getting out of a van and trying to haul a girl off into the van. As the girl resists, the police cover her mouth and start hitting her. Yes, hitting her; on her head, face, and neck, with their fists and a flashlight. So now we have a bunch of men jumping out of a van and trying to kidnap a girl and beating her.
Her parents come out and apparently the situation deescalates a bit, though the parents are forbidden from comforting their beaten child. They learn the cops were looking for three white prostitutes in a different area. No arrests occur, and the parents take their child to the emergency room where her multiple injuries are treated.
Several weeks later, the child is arrested while at school for assaulting a public servant. This seems to be a common tactic for police to cover their tracks by trying to gain leverage against a person who might sue them, by forcing the victims to spend resources defending themselves. A mistrial is declared on the first day and a retrial has not been scheduled.
Now the family is suing the police officers involved.
News story here:
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairba...lse_arrest.php
Report about the lawsuit here:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/0...at_Girl_12.htm
PDF of actual lawsuit here:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/0...vestonCops.pdf
It is a shame the father didn't have a good gun handy.
I won't go on about the audacity of the police here - the events speak for themselves. But I'll say that it isn't the fact that these events occur that make me angry so much as the fact that nothing is ever done about them. Cops can kill innocent people and as long as they don't botch planting of the drugs on the bodies they can get away with it. The city and the department internal review will always find the officer's actions appropriate (as they did in this very case). We need some way to dispense justice (perhaps some elected county police overseer who can not have been an officer or prosecutor who can strip immunity and fire cops who violate the law or rights of people). Whatever the solution, continuing to allow this to occur without severe punishment will only increase the list of civilian victims.
Yes, there are good, honest cops of course. But because of the police culture we have in this country, cops hardly ever testify against one another - the whole brotherhood idea. In my view, good cops who do not speak out about injustice they witness are not good cops. Refusing to speak out, for whatever reason, especially a sense of police brotherhood, is akin to being neutral in a crisis. And I recall hearing something about a special place in the afterlife for such people.
You know, seeing the protests in Greece, I don't admire the anarchists using it as an excuse to go on a rampage. But good things can be said for standing up and making a government fear its people.
Crazed Rabbit
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